About me

I have lived in Japan for 37 years and currently live with my husband and 5 cats. My two children are living and working in the States. I have been a quilter for over 20 years but I am semi-retired and teach English occasionally. I love the Bible and Jesus and try to serve as I can to His glory

Quilting profile

I'm a self-taught quilter who for the past 20 years has progressed through trial and error mostly using Japanese books. I belong to a small group of quilters and we yearly make a bazaar quilt but on my own I dabble in hand piecing and strip piecing and hand quilting. Since joining the blogging world I've enjoyed Wonky piecing and am trying to get a handle on machine quilting using a domestic machine.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Persimmons

I'm off and about again but I thought I'd show you some persimmons that were hanging at the kindergarten this week. They have a couple of persimmon trees on the grounds but the trees only produce fruit every other year so I'm not sure if these are home grown persimmons or store bought.

There are various types of persimmons in Japan, some round, some a little flatter and some slightly pointy. The trees lose their leaves quickly in the fall and all that is left are the orange fruit against the very black bark of the tree branches and trunk. I always imagine hundreds of little jack o'lanterns when I see the combination of black and orange together. The flatter persimmons and the round ones make for very good eating right away and also make up into a very nice cake (use the same recipe for apple cake but add ripe persimmons.) However the pointy persimmons are very astringent and can pucker up your whole body at the first bite. I had never eaten persimmons when I lived in the States and didn't even know what people meant when they told me that a certain persimmon would be too astringent to eat. I sure learned when I bit into it! It's a completely different attack on the taste buds that's different from sour! But these astringent persimmons make up into delicious dried persimmons and so at this time of year many people gather persimmons from their trees, peel them and then hang them up in the cold air for a few weeks to dry. They turn into ugly brown things but are soft and for some reason the drying and the frosty air makes them sweet. Magic! People are beginning to dry persimmons around here and they will be ready for eating around New Year's Day.

I have seen pictures of farm houses with screens of persimmons hanging near the windows (they have to be quickly pulled indoors when it rains) and it is a beautiful site with the little knobs of orange hanging from the farmhouse eaves to the ground. Even so, I thought these little double hanging persimmons looked very Japanese. On one string, two persimmons are tied together and hung over a rod right outside the kindergarten classrooms. Probably the kids will be able to take these home at the end of the year and share them with their families. I have tried to make dried persimmons but have forgotten them out in the rain and made a mess instead of a taste treat. Maybe some kind child will give me a bite of his this year...

6 comments:

Tanya, I don't know which variety of persimmons are common here but the dessert of persimmon pudding is popular. The persimmon pulp is mixed into a batter and baked and I suppose I would compare it to date pudding. It can be topped with whipped cream. My husband used to do the preparation, I think he boiled or heated the persimmons on the stove in a large pot and then ran them through a strainer to remove the skins and seeds. It was a messy job but he liked the pudding so much that he voluntarily did it. His family has a tradition of making it and we have it at get-togethers on occasion.

How strange that the act of drying them should dissipate that nasty sharpness - mind you I suppose currants and raisins are sweeter versions of grapes so it follows - they do look so pretty hanging up from the ribbons

What a cute hanging! I hadn't known about drying them either. My mother did buy some persimmons for our Thanksgiving celebration, and they were tart. We were thinking maybe we just needed to give them a few more days to ripen.

I can remember eating the astringent type of persimmon when I was a kid. We had to wait until the fruit was really squishy, but they were left on the tree, not peeled and hung up like in your picture. I guess when the birds started eating them it meant they were ripe. Nowadays we have the hybrid type in the supermarket which can be eaten crispy or left to ripen so they are a bit squishy. Delicious and usually quite cheap to buy in the winter season. They make a nice change from the usual apples, oranges and bananas.